So, how do low-level adventurers fight swarms, exactly?

[majustismp15]

My DM felt that it was needed to apply the fiendish template to a swarm of spiders...
No fire damage, no weapon damage, and swarm abilities....
It's a good thing he let us trap them in a room....until they found a way out during another battle (he forgot they do automatic damage, otherwise we would have had a TPK in seconds).

 

[Squire James]

Swarms are usually used as "terror monsters", so it is not surprising that they are hard to kill. The DM should put them in with the likely outcome of forcing the PC's to run away unless they have sufficient magical power to deal with them. In other words, placing a swarm in an area where the PC's can't run means you intend a TPK. Nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but be aware that is your intention!

As to the original question, I'd say a lit torch does 1d3 fire damage with a melee touch attack. A lit lantern or alchemists fire causes 1d6 fire damage in a 5' radius (don't forget the +50% for area effect damage to swarms!) with a ranged touch vs. AC 5. A vial of acid deals 1d6 acid damage on a ranged touch attack (and kind DM's may rule the splash effect makes it an area attack as well). Depending on the particular swarm, tanglefoot bags might still gum a swarm up.

Of course, the best spell to deal with a swarm is Expeditious Retreat...

 

[Jubilee]

I was once in a game where our high level party (~16th level) encountered several beetle swarms that had been given a draconic template (red). So not only were they terrifying swarms most of us couldn't damage (we had only one arcane caster - warmage), but they could breath fire (which they were immune to! - and many warmage spells are fire spells). We ended up locking most of them up in a lab - they were slow enough that we could lure them into the room and then run out and close the door again.

But to the OP's question - acid flasks & alchemist fire is how our parties have always dealt with them.

/ali

 

[Jack of Shadows]

I was once in a game where our high level party (~16th level) encountered several beetle swarms that had been given a draconic template (red). So not only were they terrifying swarms most of us couldn't damage (we had only one arcane caster - warmage), but they could breath fire (which they were immune to! - and many warmage spells are fire spells). We ended up locking most of them up in a lab - they were slow enough that we could lure them into the room and then run out and close the door again.

/ali

*ponders the implications of that creature*

Daddy, that's just wrong.

Jack

P.S. Anyone else think Dragons need counselling?

 

[Jubilee]

We were in a labratory-type environment, where dragons & draconic creatures were performing experiments - I'm assuming the beetles were "magically infused" with the "essence of red dragon" rather than created by the "traditional method" of getting half breeds.. I hope.. ick.

/ali

 

[LordVyreth]

Well, the game that inspired this thread just came and went, and yes, the party wisely fled. I think they could've even handled a relatively low level thread. But the wasp swarm in the Fiend Folio? Definately underleveled, and I think the DC for the poison was wrong, too.

 

[LordVyreth]

We were in a labratory-type environment, where dragons & draconic creatures were performing experiments - I'm assuming the beetles were "magically infused" with the "essence of red dragon" rather than created by the "traditional method" of getting half breeds.. I hope.. ick.

/ali

I imagine it would've taken forever too. Poor dragon. "There's how many thousand of them?"